Comment by btilly
6 years ago
Let me guess. You don't have a coordination problem?
I do. I received about a year of therapy for the fact that my left hand quite literally doesn't know what my right hand is doing. That helped. But being clumsy still made school sports really unpleasant for me.
Just because sports was right for you doesn't mean that it is right for everyone.
For any given activity X, there will be people for which X is not a reasonable thing. That doesn't mean X isn't a good thing, it just means it isn't for everyone.
If schools do not take into account those people for whom X is not reasonable, it's entirely possible for the marginal net benefit to be negative. E.g. the students who benefit most from sport would do plenty of exercise anyway, but the students who are most harmed be sport will end up permanently hating exercise.
OP stated "I can't stress enough how important youth sports are for kids"
Based on a sample size of one.
For any given activity X, there will be people for which X is a reasonable thing. That doesn't mean X is really important, it just means it's important for one person.
Here are a number of things youth sports helps foster:
1) leadership qualities
2) coping with adversity
3) how to win and lose gracefully
4) coordination (all sports take practice)
5) fights childhood obesity
6) forces kids to be around other kids instead of in isolation
7) Experience working with a team from an early age
These will work for any child, not just me.
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